Legacy in Blood (Book 1 of The Begotten of Old Series) (4 page)

Dalana stepped over the threshold.

3.

 

Hoc est vivere bis, vita posse priore frui.

To be able to enjoy a lived life means to live twice.

 

“So first of all, it is essential that I have a cell phone and a laptop,” declared Dalana.

They were sitting in a large parlor with an unlit fireplace. It was amusing that here amidst the design elements of the currently fashionable ‘High-Tech’ style, one encountered aspects of a Russian palace style. Dalana immediately recognized that the gilded details of the palatial interior were genuine. As was, so it now seemed, the coat of arms on the front gates. It was a hereditary coat of arms, and the creatures who lived in this house appeared to be members of an ancient, noble Russian family. By some whim of fate Dalana was being sheltered by Old Russian aristocrats…who by a similar whim of fate had become vampires more than seven hundred years ago.

“These need to be obtained immediately,” continued Dalana. “The laptop must be fully loaded.”

At these words Filip rose from his seat and left the room. After a minute the car could be heard leaving the courtyard. The masters of this household knew what cellular phones and plasma televisions were, and what is more – they delighted in making use of all the goods of progress. But they still regarded Filip as their ‘go-to guy’ for that was what he was when, centuries ago, still a human, he sold meat pies at the local bazaar.

“The matter of documentation must be resolved within twenty-four hours. Any documents are fine with me, even if they are obviously forged. The most important thing is that I get them as soon as possible. The only requirement I have is that the name on the passport must begin with the letter D.”

Such an eccentric little kitty.

Vasilisa, Lucinda’s younger sister, was not able to control her random thoughts all too well. She was an entirely spoiled young lady, though she made no attempt to hide this. With an interior smile, which none of those present could see, Dalana remembered the vampire films she had seen not that long ago on the airplane.

You have such pretty ankles.

Would you look at that, the girl was eyeing Dalana up and down! This little grey-eyed rogue would certainly be a worthwhile companion for what’s his name…Lestat!

There’s a party planned for tonight.

It was clear to Dalana that the ‘party’ would involve this child hanging around with her friends – a bunch of freshly made transmogs wheeling their way through nightclubs in an orgy of blood. Extremists.

Would you like to come with me? It’ll be fun.

Not likely. Dalana screwed her face up into a distasteful frown, imagining the prospect of such festivities for a second. She had come here to work, not to roam around Stockholm.

I could show you a couple of things that would blow your mind.

That was even less likely. Dalana was beginning to lose her temper. Transmogs always thought too much of themselves. They acquired their canines, lived for a few extra centuries and began to think they were insanely audacious. But when it came down to it, they still had to creep about in the dark to attack their victims. They did not even know how to fly. Only the Begotten of Old possessed this skill. Only they had sufficiently developed consciousnesses to raise their bodies into the air and move them through any space at their convenience. That was the entire secret of ‘vampiric flight.’

“We’ll resolve the issue of your passport within twenty-four hours,” said Lucinda. The sour expression on her face testified to the fact that she was listening to her sister’s mental monologue.

“Also,” Dalana said. “You will help me find more suitable accommodations.”

“In the countryside or in Stockholm?” asked Lucinda.

“I’ll think about it,” answered Dalana. “But I’ll decide after I see the passport.”

“I see,” replied Lucinda, chewing her lower lip.

She kept glancing at Vasilisa, but it seemed that her expression did not fluster the girl in the slightest.

And why exactly the letter D?

The little lamb was unreasonably curious.

Show me your canines.

STOP THIS RIGHT NOW!

I tell you what, how about you stay out of this and stop crawling into my thoughts!

Dalana would have preferred not to eavesdrop on family arguments, but the sisters were ‘yelling’ so loudly that any Begotten of Old would have heard them, even from a distance.

When Nicholaus returns I will tell him everything. EVERYTHING. Do you understand? About your debts and about the cocaine in your bedroom.

Boring old cow.

Shameless hussy.

Apparently, the third member of their family, the elder brother, was called Nicholaus.

Prude.

GET OUT OFT HERE! GET OUT NOW!

To the Dalana’s astonishment, Vasilisa did indeed get up and walk out of the room.

I’ll be seeing you.

That last was addressed to Dalana – the girl winked at her in her mind’s eye. Of course, she enjoyed behaving willfully, but she didn’t dare rebel against her elder sister entirely.

“Forgive her, please,” Lucinda said apologetically. “She’s gotten completely out of hand in the last thirty years. Such are the times.” She raised her hands, unable to voice her thoughts further.

She’s even more difficult with you around,
she thought to herself and immediately flushed bright red, perceiving that Dalana had heard her thought.

The situation was becoming awkward.

“Perhaps you would like to rest from your trip?”

And Dalana had to find some way of extracting herself from it.

“I suppose,” consented Dalana.

Lucinda led her to a spacious, comfortable bedroom. The majority of the Begotten of Old relaxed, when they needed to, beyond the framework of everyday human experience. But transmogs were still humans, or rather, their patterns of thought had been formed while they were still human, which is why they almost always set up bedrooms in their dwellings.

“The sooner I receive my passport, the sooner I will leave your house,” said Dalana. “The name can be anything, just so long as you fulfill my requirements.”

“Most assuredly,” answered Lucinda. “Please let us know if you need anything else. Sleep well.”

And she left.

In the depths of her soul, Dalana did not really despise the transmogs, as did many of her kinsmen; instead, she pitied them. They were miserable creatures, not completely human, not completely vampire. All the more so since many of them were transformed into this borderline state against their will. Excommunicates from the human world, transmogs were never fully admitted into the world of the Begotten of Old, and so all the secrets of that world were unrevealed to them.

Each of the first names on Dalana’s numerous forged passports began with the same letter as her real name. In the Classical Period, the Athenians had known her as Despina. During the times when documents were still not required, some Begotten of Old had assumed names and used them for many centuries, if not millennia. Now everything was different. One thing remained constant – the First Letter of the Name. The ancient shamans knew of the enormous power that resided in the Names of all the living creatures in the Cosmos. Dalana’s requirement that her passport name begin with the letter D ensured that the ancient magic imprisoned in her Name would not be destroyed.

There was nothing to do while she waited for her documents and the other items Filip had left to obtain, and Dalana despised idleness more than all else on this earth. She glanced out the window, and decided that it would be a good idea to take a better look at the lands surrounding the house. It turned out that there was even a forest. A dying forest, to be sure, but a forest nonetheless. All the Creatures which had inhabited the forest since time immemorial had been forced to abandon it when humans had begun to take a fancy to this picturesque corner of the Stockholm region. Soon the humans constructed a slew of their destructive gated communities, but strangely they did not completely destroy the forest.

And yet Dalana felt that someone was still living in this deserted and almost completely dead forest. She wondered who it could be.

Outside, evening was already settling in. But dark came quite slowly in these long August evenings, and Dalana would be at great risk of being seen by the human inhabitants of the community. She could well imagine the ruckus that would commence if someone suddenly saw a woman flying through the sky. Or a vampire soaring, as the case may be. The temptation was very great. However.

Dead leaves crackled softly beneath her feet. Dalana could move almost soundlessly even if the ground was strewn with popcorn.

Soon she saw
him
– a small Forest Man. The inevitable inhabitants of any forest, these tiny godlings almost never came into direct contact with humans, but every so often they were glimpsed from the corner of a human eye. The little Men did not have faces as such, simply black apertures in a white or blue screen. Humans mistook these holes for eyes. The little Men could be one-eyed, but they could also have three, four, or even five eyes. In so far as Dalana knew, they preferred to appear in groups, not as individuals. But this one sat alone on a rotten log in the center of a glade.

Hello
, Dalana greeted the godling.

He turned towards her. He had three eyes of different sizes.

Are you here alone?

Forest Men spoke very rarely, essentially performing the function of passive observers. But the Man comically wagged his head in a misshapenly elliptical pattern.

There were others. They left.

Where did they go?

The Man hesitated.
Each his own way. To find a new home.

The godling’s head wagged again. Apparently that was how he demonstrated dissatisfaction.

It’s not easy. There are few forests. And many humans.

And where did the Master go?

The Master did not leave. Humans killed him. Not for food. They liked his large antlers. After this the others left.

Those who existed beyond the borders of the human world were generally alien to excess emotion. And yet…

But why did you stay?

This. Is. My. Home.

Well, that was his choice. The Forest Men died if their Forest, the House in which they lived, perished. The only other option for the godlings was to leave before their forest died in search of a new refuge.

Farewell
, said Dalana.

The godling did not answer. He jerked his small, odd head for a moment, and then he disappeared.

“Farewell,” Dalana repeated aloud.

The forest did not answer; only the wind murmured though the leaves on the tops of the trees.

It was time to return to the manor. Dalana sincerely hoped that the sisters had managed to clarify their relationship and that Filip had filled her order.

Everything was relatively quiet in the house, at least at first glance. Dalana decided to take a shower. Any creature, even if it consisted not only of flesh and blood, or not of those at all, required regular cleansing.

Having finished washing herself, Dalana thought it might be a good idea to renew her wardrobe. In fact, she needed a new one entirely. Unfortunately that would not be possible until she settled the matter of her passport and residence. And this time she would not bother with investments in expensive real estate. She would simply rent a house or an apartment. She even thought about making do with a hotel room. It was true that she was now slightly alarmed by the fact that federal agents had her on their radar. Surely, these buffoons from the organization with the idiotic name CRUS (or was it CRUSS – she wasn’t quite sure) would first begin to search all the hotels in Stockholm. Although, to hell with them! Let them search. Dalana would hole up in a short-term rental in the city. Or better yet, she would rent an apartment within the city and a small cottage in the suburbs. Dalana thought she could complete her new mission, the one that had brought her to Stockholm in the first place, within a week, ten days at the most. And then she would leave Stockholm and probably not return for another forty years. It was something else that actually worried her: to what extent were the American intelligence agencies, the FBI and the CIA, aware of her? Which of them concerned itself with that damned Meyering? Yes indeed, she would have to come up with a clean biography, or maybe move somewhere else in Europe and lie low for two or three decades. However, no version of settling in Europe appealed to her. Simply put, Dalana did not share Yuriko’s love for everything European. She loved Asia, the United States and Russia. Moreover, each of her beloved countries fostered a completely particular feeling in Dalana. The Celestial Empire and the Island of Dragonflies – China and Japan – she loved tenderly and tremulously, just as humans usually love in their earliest youth. She felt a wild passion for the USA, comparable only to desires of the flesh. But what she felt for Russia could not be defined so easily. The feeling was like the country itself, unruly and defenseless, loyal and treacherous, proud and cunning…. There, in the very heart of its vast territory, was Dalana’s homeland. A portion of that country, that earth, lived inside the Begotten of Old, whether she wanted it to or not.

So, where could she go without fear of falling into the clutches of the world’s intelligence agencies? Europe should be considered only as a last resort. What else remained? Africa? India? Australia? They were out of the question. Firstly, they were too hot for Dalana’s tastes; secondly, they were too dirty. Thirdly, well, they were just hellish. She couldn’t even guess why any creature would want to live in such places.

Dalana bit her lip. Were there really no more places where she could wait out uncertain times? She supposed the globe was not so enormous, after all. True, there was still Canada, especially French Canada. Or was it Canadian France? Dalana had not yet lived there. Perhaps she should try it.